WARSAW (CNS): Archbishop Henryk Muszynski, the former archbishop of Gniezno, accused his country’s government of falsifying its data on refugees, while also fuelling a crisis with Germany over new demands for war reparations.

The archbishop said the government often states that it would not take refugees from Africa because it helped Ukrainians and Middle East refugees. He was speaking amid controversy over the Polish government’s refusal to offer shelter to refugees and asylum-seekers from Syria, Iraq and other war-torn countries.

GNIEZNO (SE): “If I hear that there is any kind of demonstration against refugees at Gnieznoand (West Poland) that my priests are thinking of taking part in, I will only have one very brief response. Any priest who joins will be suspended,” the primate of Poland, Archbishop Wojciech Polak, said in a message intended for all the priests of his diocese after a controversial rosary crusade.

HONG KONG (SE): People who have signed up to attend World Youth Day in Kraków, Poland, from July 26 to 31, were commissioned by John Cardinal Tong Hon in a ceremony held at the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception on July 10.

Cardinal Tong said during the ceremony that he hopes that the young people making the trip will be able to have an encounter with God during their pilgrimage and come back to Hong Kong imbued with the enthusiasm to spread the good news of Jesus Christ in society.

VATICAN CITY (CNS): Jozef Cardinal Glemp, the former bishop of Warsaw, who was primate of the Catholic Church in Poland during the final years of communism and during the restoration of democracy, died on January 23 at the age of 83 in a Warsaw hospital, Vatican Radio reported. He had undergone surgery almost a year ago as part of his treatment for lung cancer.